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From: Ralph Stuart <membership**At_Symbol_Here**DCHAS.ORG>
Subject: [DCHAS-L] EPA Environmental Crimes Case Bulletin March-April 2022
Date: Tue, 17 May 2022 14:43:25 -0400
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU>
Message-ID: DD7C6BF2-FD9A-4FFE-A7A2-A670D4BB211D**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org
EPA announces 10 settlements in these two months:
Charges Filed in Connection with Texas Oilfield Deaths
On March 8, 2022, a federal grand jury in Midland, Texas returned an indictment charging an oilfield compa-ny and an executive of the company with worker safety and environmental crimes.
According to court documents, Aghorn Operating Inc. owns and operates oil wells and leases in Texas. Ag-horn and Trent Day, Vice President of Aghorn, were indicted for violating the Clean Air Act relating to releas-es of hydrogen sulfide from an Aghorn facility, as well as obstructing an Occupational Safety and Health Ad-ministration (OSHA) investigation. Aghorn was also charged with three worker safety OSHA crimes for caus-ing the death of an Aghorn employee. In addition, Aghorn and Day, along with another corporation, Kodiak Roustabout Inc., were charged with violating the Safe Drinking Water Act and making false statements re-garding the mechanical integrity of Aghorn injection wells in forms and pressure charts filed with the State of Texas Railroad Commission.
The charges are the result of an investigation of the Oct. 26, 2019, death of Aghorn employee, Jacob Dean and his wife, Natalee Dean. Both were overcome by hydrogen sulfide, a poisonous gas, at an Aghorn facility in Odessa.
‰??The Justice Department will protect and defend the right to a safe workplace, and we will prosecute those who violate federal law aimed at keeping workers safe,‰?? said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division.
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Judge Orders Freon Smuggler to Pay $250,000
On March 1, 2022, a Fort Worth, Texas man who smuggled freon into the U.S. was ordered to pay a $250,000 fine.
Faiz Abdallahi, 56, pleaded guilty in October 2021 to the improper importation of a class II substance, a felo-ny under the Federal Clean Air Act. He was also sentenced to three years‰?? probation.
According to plea papers, Mr. Abdallahi admitted that he smuggled HCFC-22, also known as R-22 refrigerant gas ‰?? an ozone-depleting chemical colloquially called freon ‰?? into the U.S. without an authorized permit in 2017.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would later phase out production of R-22, which can no longer be produced or im-ported as of 2020. Only recovered, recycled, or reclaimed sup-plies of R-22 are currently available, though consumers are not required to stop using R-22 air conditioners.
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New Orleans Oil Company Worker Guilty of Negligent Discharge of Hazardous Substances into The Gulf of Mexico
On April 1, 2022 Patrick Huse, age 40, of Perkinston, Mississippi, pleaded guilty to charges related to a negli-gent discharge of hazardous substances into the Gulf of Mexico in violation of Title 33, United States Code, Section 1321(b)(3) and 1319(c)(1)(A).
According to the plea agreement, Huse was employed as a ‰??Person-in-Charge‰?? ( ‰??PIC‰??) on Main Pass 310A (‰??MP-310A‰??), an oil and gas production platform. In July 2015, workers on MP-310A noticed a sheen on the surface of the surface of the water surrounding the platform. The sheen meant that the platform was dis-charging oil or other hazardous substances into the Gulf of Mexico. The workers alerted Huse, a PIC on MP-310A. The workers told Huse that they believed the sheen to be the result of sand buildup in filtration equip-ment on MP-310A. Huse ordered the workers to remove the sand buildup from the filtration equipment in lieu of a complete shut-in, hoping the sheen would dissipate. These measures failed to stop the platform from sheening, so the workers shut down the platform through an emergency shutdown of the entire platform.
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Utility Company Pays $2.4 Million for Violating Clean Water Act
Leonard C Boyle, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, Tyler Amon, Special Agent in Charge of EPA‰??s Criminal Investigation Division for New England, and Commissioner Katie Scharf Dykes of the Con-necticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection announced that Marmon Utility LLC was sen-tenced on April 7, 2022 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for violating the Clean Water Act by knowingly failing to properly operate and maintain the industrial wastewater treatment system and sludge-processing equipment at the Kerite Power Cable & Pump Cable factory located at 49 Day Street in Seymour, Connecticut. Marmon Utility LLC (‰??Marmon Utility‰??), a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, owns and operates the factory.
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Nevada Apartment Complex Manager Pleads Guilty to Violating Clean Air Act Asbestos Regulations at Two Facilities
Bobby Babak Khalili, 46, of Los Angeles, entered a guilty plea to two counts of violating the Clean Air Act on March 14, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Sentencing is currently scheduled for June 15, 2022. Khalili faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count, and up to three years of supervised release.
Khalili was indicted by a grand jury siting in the District of Nevada in September 2019, in connection with as-bestos-related Clean Air Act violations at a Las Vegas apartment complex. The grand jury later returned a su-perseding indictment against Khalili in July 2021, in connection with new Clean Air Act asbestos violations at a second apartment complex, which Khalili now admits he committed while on pretrial release for the first set of charges.
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Two Diesel Trucking Companies Conspire to Violate Clean Air Act ‰?? Onboard Diagnostics Disabled on Approximately 100 Class 8 Trucks
The U.S. Attorney‰??s Ofice for the District of Colorado announced that Pro Diesel Inc. and Endrizzi Diesel, LLC. pleaded guilty to conspiring with a Colorado-based diesel shop to remove or alter the monitoring component of emissions control systems on Class 8, commercial heavy-duty diesel trucks and semi-trucks, thereby vio-lating the Clean Air Act.
According to plea agreements, between July 2017 and May 2020, Iowa-based Pro Diesel Inc. paid a Colorado diesel shop identified as ‰??E.D.‰?? more than $76,000 to disable on-board diagnostic systems on 34 Class 8 trucks. And, between January 2017 and December 2020, Missouri-based Endrizzi Diesel, LLC paid E.D. more than $149,000 to disable the diagnostic systems on approximately 60 class 8 trucks. Both diesel shops plead-ed guilty to one count of violating Title 18, United States Code, Section 371.
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Property Manager Pleads Guilty For His Role In The Failure To Properly Notify Tenants About Lead Hazards
On March 9, 2022, Richard Heil, 52, of Buffalo, NY, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of aiding and abeting the failure to provide lead paint hazard warning notice before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah J. McCarthy. The charge carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
Heil was a property manager acting on behalf of Williamsville Property Holdings LLC, a.k.a. Williamsville Prop-erties. Between December 2015, and May 2018, Heil and the company were aware of lead-based paint and lead-based paint hazards at a Wick Street residence in Buffalo, a two-family house that was built in 1905. In April 2018, and again in June 2020, Heil and Williamsville Properties rented the residence to lessees. Heil pro-vided a lead disclosure statement to those tenants, which falsely afirmed that the landlord ‰??has no knowledge of lead-based paint and/or lead-based paint hazards in the housing,‰?? and ‰??has no reports or rec-ords pertaining to lead-based paint and/or lead-based paint hazards in the housing.‰?? Sentencing is scheduled for June 8, 2022
The case was investigated by EPA‰??s Criminal Investigation Division and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Ofice of Inspector. The case is being prosecuted by a DOJ litigation team.
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Former Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority Supervisor Pleads Guilty to Violating the Clean Water Act
Glenn Lijewski - A resident of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty in federal court on April 12, 2022, to conspiring to violate the Clean Water Act. Lijewski, 71, of the City‰??s Brookline neighborhood, pleaded guilty to one count before a United States District Judge.
In connection with the guilty plea, the court was advised that Lijewski was the supervisor at the Aspinwall Drinking Water Plant, which is operated by the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (‰??PWSA‰??). Between 2010 and 2017, Lijewski and another supervisor at the plant discharged clarifier sludge directly into Allegheny River in violation of a federal permit. Lijewski also directed PWSA employees to discharge sludge into the riv- er. Lijewski also admitted to submitting reports containing false information about the amount of sludge it was to sending to ALCOSAN‰??s waste treatment plant. Under the terms of an industrial user permit, the Aspin- wall plant was permitted to send up to one million of sludge per day to the waste treatment facility. At one point, three of the five sludge flow monitors broke. Lijewski and others at the plant began using estimated sludge-flow figures. This information, in turn, was included in reports PWSA was required to submit to ALCOSAN pursu!
ant to the industrial user permit. Sludge is generated during the process by which raw water is transformed into potable drinking water and consists of solid material removed from the water through the use of chemicals and sedimentation. Over time, an island formed in the river at the point where the dis- charges were taking place. According to the indictment, a number of employees at the plant referred to the buildup as ‰??Glenn‰??s Island.‰??
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PPEI and President Kory Willis Plead Guilty and Agree to Pay $3.1 Million in Criminal Fines and Civil Penalties for the Manufacture and Sale of Illegal Delete Devices and Tunes for Die-sel Trucks
Louisiana-based company Power Performance Enterprises Inc. (PPEI) and its President and owner, Kory B. Willis, pleaded guilty to criminal charges on March 15, 2022 in federal court in Sacramento, California. Both defendants pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act and to violating the Clean Air Act by tam-pering with the monitoring devices of emissions control systems of diesel trucks.
In addition to the criminal charges, the United States also filed a civil complaint against PPEI and Willis on March 15, 2022 in federal court in the Western District of Louisiana, alleging violations of the Clean Air Act‰??s prohibition against the sale or manufacture of devices that bypass, defeat, or render inoperative emissions controls. Under the criminal plea agreements and a proposed civil consent decree, PPEI and Willis agreed to pay a total of $3.1 million in criminal fines and civil penalties. Under the civil settlement, both Willis and the company agree not to manufacture, sell or install any device that defeats emissions controls.
‰??The manufacture and sale of illegal delete devices and tunes such as the ones targeted by today‰??s actions put at risk decades of progress in controlling harmful pollution from motor vehicles in this country,‰?? said As-sistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department‰??s Environment and Natural Resources Division. ‰??As the plea agreements and civil settlement show, we will vigorously enforce the prohibitions on delete de-vices and tunes, using all appropriate enforcement tools.‰??
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Asbestos Abatement Project Supervisor Pleads Guilty to Clean Air Act Violation
On March 11, 2022, The Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney‰??s Ofice for the Middle District of Pennsyl-vania announced that Ty Allen Barnett, of Dover, Pennsylvania, entered a plea of guilty to the improper han-dling and removing of regulated asbestos containing material as required by federal law.
A ten-count indictment filed in January 2020, charged Lobar Inc., First Capital Insulation, Inc., Francis Richard Yingling Jr., Dennis Lee Charles Jr., M&J Excavation Inc., John August Sidari Jr., and Ty Allen Barnett, with vari-ous violations of the federal Clean Air Act arising from disturbing and removing asbestos in violation of the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants regulations. Lobar Inc. pleaded guilty on Feb. 9. The remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty and are currently scheduled for trial in June 2022 before U.S. District Court Judge Jennifer P. Wilson.
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